Dumping Carrots

You take your average severed finger, place it inside a convenience salad box, wrapped up in a bed of shredded lettuce leaves for company. You send it on its way. It gets passed down the line, added with some onions, cheese and a dollop of come coloured dressing. The box gets sealed, labelled and put with other containers in a chilled truck ready for delivery. On the shelves in Asda it’s joined by similar boxes, without cheese, with mayo instead of dressing, all a different variant on the same idea; just waiting for some single mother, some busy student, some lazy computer nerd to pick it up and take it home. Jeff’s Salads settle out of court, they know it’s a lose lose situation. And the single mother/student/computer nerd gets to buy a nice house, a second hand car, and pay off all the debts that society has inflicted upon them. And it never occurs to anyone to ask whose finger it was anyway. Small sacrifice for spreading a little joy in the world.

It’s 8.42am.

I watch as the second hand on the clock goes round six times. My hands, devoid of direction, grab a fist full of shredded carrot and drop it into a flimsy plastic container. Next to me a lady in a smock mirroring my own dumps a handful of lettuce and passes the bowl on where cucumber, cheese, onion and finally a squirt of come salad dressing follow. Though I am staring at the clock, the only interesting thing before me, I don’t see the time. My mind shut down a long time ago.

The second hand dances before me.
The women on my line are expressionless. Their eyes glazed over, mouths parted as they expel smoky breath into the cold air. Their average age is about fifty. At eighteen, I am the youngest here, and these women are my future. An omen of what my life will become. My fingers are permeated with orange; I lost all feeling in them hours ago.

It’s 8.43am.

These early starts will be the death of me. Up at five, I gulp down steaming tea and wait on the street for the van to pick me up fifteen minutes later. They take twenty seven pounds out of my wage every week just for driving me to work. The scenes of the countryside morph into a generic blur and I soon lose myself. Dave smokes resin as he drives, one after the other. The tar stains the rizla black. I share the van with a kid called Mike, whose greasy spots hint at adolescence, and a fat guy called Gavin, who sits in the front and occasionally inhales lighter fluid. They chat about football, drugs and money and I say nothing. There is nothing to say at five thirty in the morning.

8.44am.

My fingers, clenched in a bird’s claw, pick up some shredded carrot and drop it into a plastic bowl. This motion only requires one hand, the other hangs loose and limpid by my side. Down the aisle a woman coughs and covers her mouth with her hand, full of diced onions. She blinks, her eyes filmed over with the first stages of cataracts, then drops the onions into the approaching bowl which wobbles on the conveyor belt.

8.59am.

The clocks second hand shudders at each point, as if uncertain of its place. I compare myself with other people. My sister will be tucked up in bed right now, having once again convinced my mother that she is ill and my friends will be at college. The familiar sinking sensation grips my stomach as I wonder yet again why did I quit. Why did I quit? My rush to escape the mundanity of life has lead me here, confined within these sterile white washed walls, another set of hands on a long production line. Silence hums in my ears as my body surrenders to the cold and shivers without conviction. My feet are in wellies shared by so many others, trapped in this job until something better comes along.

Confined in here hope seems a distant memory. Is it worth turning off your brain for eight hours a day for minimum wage? A woman opposite me opens her mouth with loud smacking movements, “So, what are you having for tea tonight Vera?” She’s talking to the woman next to her but her eyes don’t move from the circles of cucumber clinging to her fingers.

“Oh, I think I’ll have one of them microwave lasagnes. Ever so easy, and Bill loves them.” The woman next to her replies, her teeth are yellow, and her face sags with gravity’s grip.

“Oh aye, they’re good, they are.” The inane words cloud in the cold air for a moment, then are gone.

I want to scream I want to scream I want to scream. Haven’t they got anything better to talk about than microwave lasagnes? My eyes dart about the cold warehouse. I am surrounded by row after row of long stainless steel tables, each encircled by people reflecting my own actions. Each wearing baby blue hair nets and white wellies, heads bowed in concentration. Am I the only one bored beyond despair?

I watch the second hand as it continues on its endless journey. 9.22am.

Still 9.22am

The second hand jumps back three digits. Time is illusive.

‘If you work hard the company may employ you.’ They told me. ‘Then you won’t have to be with an agency any more. Then you’ll have job security. Just like us.’ Just like us. I wonder how you can work hard when all you do is pick up and dump carrots. I wonder what they’re all thinking about, behind their clouded eyes and frizzy hair. Do they love The Stones, The Kinks, The Beatles like me, or do their interests extensively lie only in what affects their lives directly. Coronation Street, their kids. And microwave lasagnes.

9.30am.

A whistle blows, signalling the beginning of break. We walk, orderly and without thought, through some doors and into the antibacterial area. We take off our wellies, place them in lockers and queue to wash our hands. The water is warm and sparks feeling back into our fingers. My fingernails are orange, brittle and broken. We walk out into the hallway and approach the staff room, its walls imbued yellow from aged nicotine. The smell tickles my throat. I make a detour into the toilets, find a cubicle, lock it and crouch down. My chest rises and falls and I begin to cry in suppressed strangled sobs. The air hisses in through my teeth then chokes out, out, out. Only my second week here and already I can’t take it. I can’t take it.

At 9.45am a whistle blows once again. Mummers of conversation drift to me as they walk past the toilet door. When all is quiet I wipe my face on some tissue. My mascara leaves black streaks down my cheeks, and refuses to be erased. I walk out the toilets and down the corridor. Sunlight breaks free from the clouds and streams through the windows. I find a fire exit and push the door open. Walk out into another world, another day. The vast car park is empty, and indistinct buildings loom around me. I don’t know where I am. I hesitate, turn round, and watch the door click shut behind me.

There is no handle on the outside.

Words: 1248